


Attempted and Failed

by cherrycola94



Series: Anywhere But Here. [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Green Arrow (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics), Red Hood: Lost Days
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Kinda, M/M, Other, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, i mean technically it is so, yeah - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:42:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29686233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrycola94/pseuds/cherrycola94
Summary: “How oft when men are at the point of death,”Jason says to himself, turning the knife over in his hands.“Have they been merry, which their keepers call a lightning before death.”Jason Todd was a little in love with the idea of Death.With the idea of finally being released from the miserable thing they called life in Gotham City.
Relationships: Catherine Todd & Jason Todd & Willis Todd, Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne, Roy Harper & Jason Todd, Roy Harper/Jason Todd
Series: Anywhere But Here. [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2181555
Comments: 5
Kudos: 94





	Attempted and Failed

**Author's Note:**

> plot? there is no plot, only a Vibe B))) also there’s quite a bit of shakespeare references, so if you hate that stuff don’t say i didn’t warn ya

The first time Jason Todd tried to kill himself was at the age of 11.

He was in the balcony of his childhood apartment, the sounds of his parents arguing faded but audible from their bedroom. He leans against the railing, testing the sturdiness of the half-rusted metal. The stars blink silently at him from their pedestals, ethereal and distant.

“You’re beautiful,” He says to the sky as if it listens. For all he knew, it might be. Or maybe the sky was used to its own beauty and decided to ignore irrelevant people like himself on clear nights like these. “It’s a shame you have to see all this.” He looks toward the sprawling dumpster city the world called Gotham.

It’s Friday. If he died now, it would be Friday night for all of his eternity.

Jason leans harder against the railing and looks down. He doesn’t know the exacts, but he does know that 25 stories didn’t leave much for the hospitals to save. He leans into the air a little more, feeling it against his face.

He strokes his thumb against the red piece of chalk he holds in his hand and drops it. Watching it spiral down, down, down. On a clear day he’d be able to see it turn into a little speck, but tonight the shadows outside are at their darkest so he resorts to picturing it falling all that way. The feeling spawns dozens of cold butterflies in his stomach.

“Skeletal butterflies,” Jason names them. He tilts his head up toward the Moon and explains the name to her; “Because living butterflies aren’t this cold.”

And as the Moon sits at her place in the sky, Jason finds something inside him begging to follow that piece of chalk down to the ground level.

He tries to imagine what his mangled body would look like next to the crushed powder on the sidewalk. How much blood would leak out of his skull? Would he die midair from the shock of it all, or when all his bones are crushed against the pavement? Headfirst to shatter his skull like glass, or feet first to feel the white-hot agony moments before passing? Would he be able to scatter in the wind and mix with the chalk’s powder? Should he try to fly now, or do it later during the day where more could see and sing laments for the loss of a child.

He hears his father yelling even louder in the background and makes up his mind about his last question.

He drags one of the patio chairs over to the edge of the balcony and stands on it. He looks down, the height is so  _ high  _ it makes the butterflies in Jason’s stomach multiply. The drop is so far down, he wouldn’t be able to see the ground if it weren’t for the streetlamps illuminating the pavement for pedestrians down there.

_ “Tired with all these,” _ Jason mutters into the wind, into the world, as he pulls his sneakers off and rests a socked foot against the railing.  _ “For a restful death I cry.” _

His leans forward as far as he can and welcomes the darkness waiting for him with open arms

before violently being jerked backward by an unknown force.

Jason lands in a discordant pile onto the floor. His head throbs where it hit the ground, and he reaches up to rub it.

When he looks up he realizes that Willis is the one who pulled him back by the collar of his shirt. Typical of his father, barging in and messing things up.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He yells. The stench of alcohol coming off of him makes Jason’s head spin. “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

“That’s the point,” Jason mutters, loud enough only for himself to hear. He braces himself for a punch to the jaw (his father hated mumbling), but Willis just makes a sound of annoyance.

“Get inside.” He steers Jason into the apartment by the arm and stands at the balcony door until the tween retreats into his bedroom. 

Jason wakes at dusk and tries to open his door and try again to the sunrise. 

He soon finds out that his door had been locked from the outside. And ever since that night, Willis kept the door to the balcony locked tight with various padlocks and chains. Jason couldn’t pick all of them open without waking his parents up (or getting beat), so over time he just gave up on using the balcony. He observed this balcony from afar and tucked all his urges away into the darkest corner of his heart.

Jason didn’t even like heights, so why should it be the last thing he sees?

***

The second time Jason Todd tries to kill himself is some time after the Lazurus pit changed him.

His brushes with death as Robin instilled some sort of survival sense into him. When he got stabbed, his hands worked before his mind did and patched up the wound. When a criminal pointed a gun at him, he’d move like Bruce and disarm them within the blink of an eye. He holds his breath while hiding and erases all traces of his presence on stakeouts like it’s second nature. He’s learnt to live against his own will, limping alongside his partner in crime.

But now, he’s separated from Bruce and free to do whatever he wants. Like staring at his reflection for hours after patrol.

He really hates the way he looks.

Jason stood at exactly five feet and eight inches when he was beaten to death; just tall enough to feel like a man when he was by himself and short enough to still feel like a boy around adults. But after emerging from the pit, he is a half foot taller-- now a man lacking a proper childhood.

The skin he wears does not exactly look… human, to say the least. Quicker to heal, slower to warm. It had also been erased of all the scars he had earned in the past, right along with the stories and the trials taken to earn them. Every time he expects to see Willis’ cigarette burns glaring dark brown at him, he is surprised by the smoothness of the skin.

His hair was like ash, black, gray, and white. It makes him look a lot older than he was (which he couldn’t figure out), which in turn makes him  _ feel  _ a lot older than he thinks he’s supposed to be. The most noticeable of the white hairs gathered in a tuft at the front of his head. He touches those strands of hair often, remembering exactly how hard the Joker brought down his crowbar there.

It was one of the only things he had to prove the torture he’d been subjected to before being blown to bits. Every time he tries to dye it black, it washes out.

Maybe  _ that’s _ why Ra’s Al Ghul’s hair was graying.

His eyes were formerly an airy blue color now glow green when he looks directly at them. If he looked at himself in the mirror at night after using the bathroom, he could see them emitting a soft, eerie light like a horror movie character.

Like a monster.

His reflection is nothing like how he remembers himself.

He looked too sad.

He looked too old.

He looked too much like his dad.

He’s still watching himself breathe, even after making that disturbing connection to his father. Why? He doesn’t know. Maybe he’s waiting to become the boy he was before, so he could try to grow up again.

_ “The valiant never taste of death but once,” _ He says to the stranger looking at him. “So what does that make you?”

_ A coward.  _ He thinks in response.  _ Because all you’ve done is long for release from life. _

His reflection watches his fist connect with the mirror before it cracks and shatters explosively into large chunks and bits of silvery dust all over the bathroom. Dark red runs down Jason’s hands and starts dripping onto a particularly large shard of broken glass that landed by his feet.

_ If I don’t have any scars on my body,  _ Jason thinks hazily as he slowly reaches for the piece of glass.  _ I’ll just try to make some new ones. _

He tests the sharpness of the glass, pressing the pad of his thumb against it. A small bubble of blood forms. He watches it burst and start dripping down his wrist. He raises the shard up to his neck in a silent staring contest with his reflection.

His father’s reflection.

The apartment’s landline rings with a spam call, a grating sound to Jason’s ears.

Jason stops, the shiny deathwish resting against his palm like a friend’s handshake. Ignoring the phone, he then. Slowly.

Digs.

In. 

Deeper.

A fine line of red starts to form. It darkens as more comes out, and Jason touches it in fasication.

_ There’s so much.  _ He thinks in wonder and squeezes his hand, coaxing out as much as blood he can.

Then the phone starts ringing. Again.

“What am I doing?” He mutters, watching the blood run down to his elbows. It looks black. Like pen ink.

Jason stops himself for the second time. He walks out of the bathroom and tears the phone right out of the wall and falls asleep on the floor by his couch.

  
  


***

The last time Jason Todd tried to kill himself was before Roy knocked on his door.

And this time, Jason finally knows how to kill himself properly.

Gunshots and stabwounds worked in theory, but they worked slowly. They were more annoying than anything, stinging and making Jason move slowly. He’d pass out, wake up, pass out again, and then patch himself up out of exhaustion. He’d suffered enough

He also had this odd rule of dying by his own hands, and not any criminals. Death was death, but it felt… wrong to be killed by a criminal.

_ “How oft when men are at the point of death,” _ Jason says to himself, turning a knife over in his hands. The same knife that could be used to cut through Bruce’s grappling hooks.  _ “Have they been merry, which their keepers call a lightning before death.” _

He will stab himself in the heart and carve it right out of his chest, like Juliet over Romeo’s corpse. He’ll hold his heart in his bloody hand, and watch it beat on his palm as the world caves in and dumps him into Hell.

It’s fitting that his own Romeo walks in, spare keys dangling from his index finger with a megawatt smile on his face moments after Jason pulls the knife from his chest. Before he stabs himself again.

“Roy?” He asks and the concern on his friend’s face becomes a lifeline. He finds himself unable to long for death. At least, for the moment being.

“Jason!” Roy’s frozen, too stunned to move. “What’re you  _ doing?” _

“What I want,” Jason sits up on his couch, gesturing vaguely. “What I want _ ed.” _

Something in Roy seems to click and he rushes over to his friend. “You’re crazy,” He chokes as he holds his hand to Jason’s chest, the other dialing the hospital. He rattles on about the details of Jason’s condition as he closes his eyes.

_ “Dream on, dream on, of bloody deeds and death,”  _ Jason mumbles. He throws the bloodied knife to the floor. It lodges itself between the seams of the hardwood and stands on its own.  _ “Death rock me asleep.” _

“Are you seriously quoting right now?” Roy’s tone becomes panicked. The expression on his face making it look like  _ he  _ was the one dying instead of Jason. “You better stay with me or I’m hauling your ass to the pit.  _ Again.” _

“Roy,” Jason opens his eyes, his head swimming. Lights flash around the edge of his eyes like dancing ghosts. He grasps Roy’s shoulder.

“Yeah?” Roy sounds like he’s lightyears away. Everything is… slow. It’s almost nice.

“Roy, I’m still here.”

_ Unfortunately. _

  
  


***

  
  


“Oh California, I miss you,” Roy sighs as he looks out the window at the winter scenery. “Sometimes I wish I was on Ollie’s good side and at his house.”

“I don’t really mind the cold,” Jason says, tossing Roy a blanket. “This body sometimes  _ does _ have perks.” He jokes.

Roy turns down the volume of the TV as Jason sits beside him. Jason can feel the burn of his stare on him as he carefully wraps himself up in a sloppy blanket burrito.

“So how  _ are _ you?” Roy asks him after settling down in a comfortable position. “How’s… your brain working for you?” It’s a stupidly phrased question, but it’s sweet of him to ask it.

To be perfectly honest, Jason knows he’s getting better at controlling his impulses. Not entirely, but slowly. Just while doing little things, like cutting paper with scissors and chopping onions for dinner. He still thinks  _ those _ thoughts sometimes, but he doesn’t actually commit any acts against himself. 

So, it was a slight improvement.

But instead of actually saying any of this, Jason decides to add a little drama to his answer.

_ “If I must die, I will encounter darkness as a bride,”  _ Jason begins quoting as he throws a casual arm around the back of the couch. “And tell her that I have a boyfriend.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Roy snuggled into his chest, despite Jason never being warm during winter. It was about the touch, not the warmth. If Jason could blush, he would’ve felt the blood rush up to his face. “Jay, has anyone told you that you’re a drama queen?”

“Well, I only quote Shakespeare around you,” Jason rested his head on top of Roy’s. “So no.”

“Aw, so that means you  _ love _ me,”

“No, I just know that it bothers you,” Jason presses a quick kiss to the top of Roy’s head.

“That’s bullying,”

“I know,” Jason says.

They sit on the couch in comfortable silence. Friends. Lovers. No matter what, always by each other’s side.

And maybe that’s all Jason needed.

**Author's Note:**

> gonna get personal here and say that this is based off of. well, this entire series is based off of me (pretty narcissistic haha). 
> 
> summer of 2017ish was the first time i tried to kill myself. i remember my parents bought a new juicer and my cousin planned on using it because he loved freshly squeezed orange juice, so he came over to make some juice with me.  
> i wrote a suicide note the night before (your standard “i’m sorry” and everything. it was quite poorly written.).  
> i was in the balcony, dropping little pieces of chalk over the edge and watching them tumble downward. it gave me this odd, addictive rush and i’d want to flip over the edge and follow the chalk’s descent. turn into powder and scatter in the wind. but… since i was a little afraid of heights, i stood at the railing of my balcony for ten minutes. staring.  
> my cousin came out outside. he got annoyed by me saying “just a minute” so he dragged me indoors by the collar of my shirt and made me squeeze juice with him. he asked me to sleep over at his place so that we could finally start that one star wars marathon i said we’d have.  
> so, i tucked the suicide letter away into a really old primary school notebook and wallowed in my misery a little longer.
> 
> around four years later, i found that note while packing boxes. and five days ago i burnt it in the bathtub at my friend’s house. i took the ashes and threw them into the backyard.
> 
> so, if i’m typing this out here, you must think that there’s a point to all of this. and what i’m trying to say is;
> 
> i want you to wait. wait a little longer.


End file.
